Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1887-03-11
A Great Evil.
Banner Of Light

(Banner of Light
"Respectable Robbery" is the name,
given by a judge of the New York SUI
preme Court, in suit recently decided
by him, to the modern practice of buy
ing up the indispensable necessaries of
life, and keeping them out of the reach
of consumers until they have created
famine in them, and thus raised pri-
ces to the standard established by these
unscrupulous dealers. Such combin-
ations are styled" corners" in the street
and they are put up, from time to
time, on wheat, meat, coal and other
necessaries. A number of wealthy
speculators, says the New York Herald,
eager to make money on an enormous
scale, combine to control the wheat
market. With or without cash, they
buy, or agree to to buy, millions of
bushels. Having got control of this
vast amount, they at once advance the
price far beyond the normal market
quotations. The speculators have a
monopoly, and the wheat is needed to
supply the usual demand. Smaller
and more honest buyers and millers
are forced to yield to their exactions.
The price becomes artificial and ficti-
tious. The market is dem oralized
Trade and industry are disturbed and
injuriously affected. Losses fall heav-
lily upon honest dealers and millers
bound by contracts made on the legit-
innate basis of natural market fluctua-
tions. Consumers of bread are the
chief victims of the extortion.
AS the miller must pay more for his
wheat, he must of course get more for
his -four The baker must raise
the price of his bread, because he has
to give more for his flour. Hence
every family that buys a loaf of bread,
every poor working-man or woman
who buys few pounds of flour must
pay an advanced price, must give for
the flour of bread more than its legiti-
mate value. And this is what is none
to lightly called respectable robbery.
1t is the same way when coal, in
stead of wheat, is the agency by which
these organized operators seek to sati-
ate their greed. Half-a-dozen power
full railroad corporations, for instance,
combine to control the output and the
sale of coal. They limit the production,
and thereby cut down wages and drive
thousands of miners into enforced
idleness for long periods. They ad-
vance prices, and, as they have o mo-
nopoly, consumers everywhere, large
and small, rich and poor, must pay
them. A heavier burden is thus i'm
posed upon every needy wage-earner.
every struggling washer-woman, every
family head in a miserable tenement
house, who is forced to pay more of
the hard earned pennies for every pail
full of coal needed to keep fireplace or
stove warm.
No one can tell the amount of suf-
fering caused by this heartless mono
poly of the common neccssaFies of
life. These spectators set out to
make money. So does the highway
robber, and SO does the burglar. The
latter attack those who are poor as
well rs those who are rich, plundering
all classes alike. The most needy con
sumers, says the Herald, working-men
and women struggling for bare exis-
tence, are made to pay the oppressive
tribute, to take more from the scanty,
hard got earnings and hand it over to
swell the gains of millionaire specula-
tors.
Is there no law, then, to check such
abominable transactions? Cannot the
helpless victims of this deliberate rob.
berry be protected? Are there nc
means of escape? no redress for the
infliction of wrongs so cruel? Over
and over again these questions have
been been asked and answered in the
courts, and each time according to the
rules of justice and right. The Judge
to whom we have referred above, de.
clared that the law will not permit
parties owning property and contem'
plating the purchase or sale of more
of it, to combine together to keep it of
the market and oblige the public tc
pay a larger price for the article than